1961 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal Government

• President: Dwight D. Eisenhower , John F. Kennedy
• Vice President: Richard Nixon , Lyndon B. Johnson
• Chief Justice: Earl Warren
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Sam Rayburn , vacant
• Senate Majority Leader: Lyndon B. Johnson , Mike Mansfield
• Congress: 86th, 87th

  Governors

Lieutenant Governors

Events

January–March

• January 3
• *President Dwight Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba.
• *At the National Reactor Testing Station near Idaho Falls, Idaho, atomic reactor SL-1 explodes, killing 3 military technicians.
• January 5 - Italian sculptor Alfredo Fioravanti marches into the U.S. Consulate in Rome, and confesses that he was part of the team that forged the Etruscan terracotta warriors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• January 17 - President Dwight Eisenhower gives his Farewell Address, he warns of the increasing power of a "military-industrial complex".
• January 20 - John F. Kennedy is sworn in as the 35th President of the United States.
• January 24
• *A U.S. B-52 Stratofortress, with two nuclear bombs, crashes near Goldsboro, North Carolina.
• *Musician Bob Dylan reportedly makes his way to New York City after bumming a ride in Madison, Wisconsin. Dylan is likely on his way to visit his idol Woody Guthrie. He later finds fame in the Greenwich Village protest folk music scene.
• January 25 - In Washington, DC John F. Kennedy delivers the first live presidential news conference. In it, he announces that the Soviet Union has freed the 2 surviving crewmen of a USAF RB-47 reconnaissance plane shot down by Soviet flyers over the Barents Sea July 1, 1960.
• January 26 - John F. Kennedy appoints Janet G. Travell to be his physician, the first woman to hold this appointment.
• January 30 - President John F. Kennedy delivers his first State of the Union Address.
• January 31 - Ham the Chimp, a 37-pound male, is rocketed into space aboard Mercury-Redstone 2, in a test of the Project Mercury capsule, designed to carry United States astronauts into space.
• February 1 - The United States launches its first test of the Minuteman I intercontinental ballistic missile.
• February 14 - Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized in Berkeley, California.
• February 15
• *President Kennedy warns the Soviet Union to avoid interfering with the United Nations pacification of the Congo.
• *A Sabena Boeing 707 crashes near Brussels, Belgium, killing 73, including the entire United States figure skating team and several coaches.
• March 1 - President of the United States John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.
• March 8 - The first U.S. Polaris submarines arrive at Holy Loch.
• March 13
• *United States delegate to the United Nations Security Council Adlai Stevenson votes against Portuguese policies in Africa.
• *President of the United States John F. Kennedy proposes a long-term "Alliance for Progress" between the United States and Latin America.
• March 29 - The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, allowing residents of Washington, D.C. to vote in presidential elections.
• March 30 - The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is signed at New York City.

  April–June

• April 17
• *The Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba begins; it fails by April 19.
• *The 33rd Academy Awards ceremony is held; The Apartment wins Best Picture.
• April 23 - Judy Garland performs in a legendary comeback concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
• April 27 - President Kennedy a delivers revealing speech: The President and the Press: Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association.
• May 4 - U.S. Freedom Riders begin interstate bus rides to test the new U.S. Supreme Court integration decision.
• May 5 - Mercury program: Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space aboard Mercury-Redstone 3.
• May 9 - In a speech on "Television and the Public Interest" to the National Association of Broadcasters, FCC chairman Newton N. Minow describes commercial television programming as a "vast wasteland".
• May 14 - American civil rights movement: A Freedom Riders bus is fire-bombed near Anniston, Alabama and the civil rights protestors are beaten by an angry mob of Ku Klux Klan members.
• May 21 - American civil rights movement: Alabama Governor John Patterson declares martial law in an attempt to restore order after race riots break out.
• May 24 - American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi for "disturbing the peace" after disembarking from their bus.
• May 25 - Apollo program: President Kennedy announces before a special joint session of Congress his goal to put a man on the Moon before the end of the decade.
• May 31 - President John F. Kennedy and French President Charles De Gaulle meet in Paris, France.
• June 4 - Vienna summit: John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev meet during two days in Vienna. They discuss nuclear tests, disarmament and Germany.

  July–September

• July 21 - Mercury program: Gus Grissom, piloting the Mercury-Redstone 4 capsule Liberty Bell 7, becomes the second American to go into space. Upon splashdown, the hatch prematurely opens, and the capsule sinks.
• July 31 - At Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, the first All-Star Game tie in major league baseball history occurs, when the game is stopped in the 9th inning due to rain.
• August - USA founds Alliance for Progress.
• August 5 - The Six Flags over Texas theme park officially opens to the public.
• August 7 - Cape Cod National Seashore is established.
• September 7 - Tom and Jerry make a return with their first episode since 1958, Switchin' Kitten.
• September 17 - The world's first retractable roof stadium, the Civic Arena, opens in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
• September 24 - The Walt Disney anthology television series, renamed Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, moves from ABC to NBC after seven years on the air, and begins telecasting its programs in color for the first time.
• September 25 - Black voting rights activist Herbert Lee is murdered by Mississippi state representative E. H. Hurst.

  October–December

• October 1 - Baseball player Roger Maris of the New York Yankees hits his 61st home run in the last game of the season, against the Boston Red Sox, beating the 34-year-old record held by Babe Ruth.
• October 9 - The New York Yankees defeat the Cincinnati Reds, 4 games to 1, to win their 19th World Series Title.
• October 27 - A standoff between Soviet and American tanks in Berlin, Germany heightens Cold War tensions.
• November - The Fantastic Four #1 comic debuts, launching the Marvel Universe and revolutionizing the American comic book industry.
• November 2 - Kean opens at Broadway Theater in New York City for 92 performances.
• November 6 - The U.S. government issues a stamp honoring the one-hundredth birthday of James Naismith.
• November 9 - Robert M. White records a world record speed in a rocket plane of 6,585 km/h flying an X-15.
• November 17 - Michael Rockefeller, son of New York Governor, and later Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, disappears in the jungles of New Guinea.
• November 18 - U.S. President John F. Kennedy sends 18,000 military advisors to South Vietnam.
• November 20 - The funeral of longtime House Speaker Sam Rayburn is held in Washington, DC. Two former Presidents and one future one join President Kennedy in paying their respects.
• December 5 - U.S. President John F. Kennedy gives support to the Volta Dam project in Ghana.
• December 11 - The Vietnam War officially begins, as the first American helicopters arrive in Saigon along with 400 U.S. personnel.

  Ongoing

• Cold War
• Space Race

  Sport

• April 16 - Chicago Black Hawks win their third Stanley Cup by defeating the Detroit Red Wings 4 games to 2; the deciding game is played at Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

  Births

• January 2 - Todd Haynes, director and screenwriter
• January 4
• *Lee Curreri, actor and pianist
• *Sidney Green, basketball player and coach
• January 7 - John Thune, U.S. Senator from South Dakota from 2005
• January 9 - Oliver Goldstick, screenwriter and producer
• January 29 - Mike Aldrete, baseball player and coach
• February 17 - Chris Champion, wrestler
• March 14 - Gary Dell'Abate, radio producer, best known for his work on The Howard Stern Show
• March 25 - Reggie Fils-Aimé, president of Nintendo of America
• April 3 - Eddie Murphy, actor
• April 10 - Mark Jones, basketball player
• April 20 - Mike Pniewski, actor and public speaker
• April 26 - Chris Mars, singer-songwriter, drummer and producer
• May 3 - David Vitter, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 2005 to 2017
• May 12 - Paul Begala, journalist and academic
• May 31 - Lea Thompson, actress and director
• May 5 - Sarah Zivale, actress and singer
• May 6 - George Clooney, actor, film director, producer and screenwriter
• May 8 - Bill de Blasio, politician, Mayor of New York City from 2014
• May 12
• *Lar Park Lincoln, actress
• *Jerry Trimble, actor and stuntman
• July 14 - Jackie Earle Haley, actor
• August 4 - Barack Obama, 44th and first African American President of the United States from 2009 to 2017
• August 9 - Amy Stiller, actress, daughter of Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara and sister of Ben Stiller
• August 21 - Stephen Hillenberg, marine biologist, cartoonist
• August 25 - Billy Ray Cyrus, singer
• September 16 - Jen Tolley, voice actress
• October 26 - Dylan McDermott, actor
• November 1 - Ryan Zinke, 52nd United States Secretary of the Interior
• November 17
• * Pat Toomey, U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania since 2011.
• * Robert Stethem, U.S. Navy Seabee diver murdered by Hezbollah terrorists during the hijacking of TWA Flight 847
• November 22 - Mariel Hemingway, actress and sister of Margaux Hemingway
• December 8 - Ann Coulter, political commentator
• December 9 - Joe Lando, actor
• December 24 - Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors

  Deaths

• January 9 – Emily Greene Balch, writer, pacifist and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946
• January 29 – John F. O'Ryan, soldier, lawyer and politician
• February 3 – Anna May Wong, film actress
• April 24 – Walter Tewksbury, runner and hurdler
• July 2 – Ernest Hemingway, fiction writer, journalist and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea
• December 25 – Otto Loewi, pharmacologist
• December 28 - Edith Wilson, First Lady of the United States